Times over and under and between
by Ayingott
Summary: A story about the spirit of winter and the child that sees those that can't be seen.


**Disclaimer: Not mine. Never was, never will.**

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**Times over and under and between.**

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Small puffs of white breath ghost before his face, leaving as soon as they come to be – shadows of a life that is still struggling on. The cold winter air bites his exposed skin painfully, reminding that he is, in fact, dressed too lightly and not enough. He's a fool, he knows. But there is nothing else he can do but bear with the cold.

Aomine is a fool, always has been and always will be. It doesn't matter that he's a spirit, or ghost or whatever the hell he actually is. He doesn't know it himself, doesn't remember because of the time that has scratched long wounds in his memory.

He may be a fool, but even fools wish to be known and loved.

So he waits, wrapping the jacket he swiped from some human tighter around his body and blows out puffs of white breath. There is no telling how long he had waited, not telling how long he will, but that doesn't disturb him in the least. He can't die, nor can he catch a sickness of sorts. He is a supernatural being, a spirit that levitates and waits and brings forth the coldness of a winter. He is winter and winter is him, so how come the cold still bites?

"Blasted night." He mutters under his nose and the voice is quiet, slightly rattling of annoyance and little use, but that's nothing new. He rarely talks and when he does it's only to mess with another spirit or to show a human where he belongs. "Too quiet."

With a final puff of white and bored look around, past the treetops and at the dark, yet bright, light that is the city far off in the distance he stands up from his crouching position on the top of the pine tree and stretches. His body doesn't make a squeak of protest, only sings in joy when he finally moves – swift and deadly and just like the wind.

He evaded the obstacles that suddenly showed in his path, carried by winds that weren't in his favor. Moving like he was the wind itself was easy for Aomine now, he has had a long enough time to learn how to play with the winds, how to control them and how to make them his. He's a natural at this, really, as natural as someone who goes against the laws nature is. But he is and he enjoys the rush of freedom and emotions and adrenalin that courses through his veins of cold blood and ice, the winds that hit against his face and the clouds that envelop him as he flies.

He is a free spirit – a man with no home and base and only the freedom with no boundaries.

Soon he is sat on the balcony railing, peering into a cozy looking room that glows in golden light and is filled with the laughter of children. Did he have a childhood like this once? All laughs and smiles and the soft and calming buzz of love and happiness? Maybe he did have, but his memories have long since faded away and left only thin spider webs behind, reminding Aomine of the childhood he had forgotten and life he had lost long ago.

"Cute little brat." He mumbles under his nose when a short kid, maybe around four, presses hands against the glass door and looks at him with wide, red eyes. The fiery red also is the color of the boy's hair and it's a first that Aomine has seen eyebrows like that.

It takes a couple of moments for the spirit to come to a decision, with the help of a small sigh that rolls past his lips in the form of white frost. The kid could see him anyway, so what bad could it be to entertain him a little. And so Aomine jumps down from the railing and then walks up the glass door, knocking on it twice.

A cute blink is his answer and then a wide smile spreads across the kid's face and he opens the door, shivering when the chilly winter air bit his warm skin. Understandable, the red-head kid was dressed in some shorts and a t-shirt only. The spirit took pity of the child and tapped the kid's nose, a whirlwind of snowflakes came out from his fingertip and then the child was at the centre of it, eye wide with awe and childish curiosity.

Aomine smirks, reaching out his hand to ruffle the human child's hair and then mumbles low and quiet, "Be thankful, I don't normally go around making sure that little brats don't get cold."

The stay like that, one standing on the cold metal of the balcony floor barefooted and the other looking up in awe at the spirit in front of him, chubby little hands clenching the doorframe. They probably look funny, but no one is able to see Aomine, so people would rather worry why the child is out in the cold and not dressed like he should be.

Humans - so frail and needy.

There is a voice suddenly coming from the inside, a language that Aomine doesn't understand. A woman, probably the little brat's mother comes in and her eyes widen when she sees her little one standing at an open door, welcoming in the cold winter air, chilled by the night and frost alike. She pulls the redhead away from the door and shuts the door, locking it just to be sure that nothing like that happens again.

Aomine thc-es under his breath and already turns to leave, but his dark blue eyes, the color of a stormy sea in the middle of the winter, catch a large smile and a waved goodbye directed at him. A second passes by and then he returns the gesture.

He leaves feeling slightly better than before, a small grin on his lips and a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he will come back to that house tomorrow too, just to make sure that the little brat wasn't sick from today's meeting.

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**A/N: I don't know what made this be, but I had to write it. It's a Jack Frost!Aomine AU, with a cute Kagami chibi as an addition. Welp, time to get back to uni work now.**


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